


We make our own hells

by flintrage



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Flint is Haunted, Gen, Ghost Gates, Grief, Horror, M/M, Nightmares, Sort Of, how does tagging work, once again these two were partners and you can't convince me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flintrage/pseuds/flintrage
Summary: Prompt: flint having a nightmare about gates post-s1It's what it says on the tin. Also, I'm in pain.





	We make our own hells

You haven’t been here in a while, Flint says. I dreamt of you for weeks, then you just stopped coming.

Gates scoffs at him. He looks out of place in the captain’s chair, turning a small wooden figurine over in his hands. Flint stands on the other side of the desk with his hands behind his back and waits for him to look up.

Time stretches. The cabin is sweltering and sticky, and its walls warp and tremble with the pressure of being underwater. Skeletal white fish dart past the windows. Flint can never get a good look at them. When he tries to look through the windows for too long they start to tremble like they’ll shatter, and low, mournful calls rise up from the deep. 

But he’s safe if he keeps his eyes on Gates. Gates, who does not look at him, who examines a small wooden anchor Flint had carved for him years ago, who  _does not look at him._

Please look at me–

I can’t keep coming back to you, Hal interrupts. His lips don’t move. The voice comes from somewhere deep beneath the ship but it is also all around them, it is in Flint’s mind, low and gruff as ever, just like he remembers. If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have come back at all. 

Flint says nothing. There’s a sick kind of dread in the pit of his stomach. 

Then again, Hal continues, still not looking at him, lips still sealed, if I had it my way, you wouldn’t have snapped my neck, but ah, well. Here we are. Can’t have everything in this life, that much has always been clear.

If there were another way–if I could take it back–

Ah, but you wouldn’t. And anyway, you can’t, so there’s no use crying about it.

No, Flint says. No, I suppose not.

Something white and bony flashes past the window, sleek like an eel. Flint’s eyes are drawn to it, to the stained-glass windows of the cabin, painfully bright and colourful: they seem to stretch, to warp and loom over him, and that sleek white shape emerges from the distant murk, the whole cabin vibrating; a roaring, rushing sound trembles the ship and when Flint tears his eyes away from the window he finds Hal staring right back at him, pale and rigid in death, his eyes wide and fearful and accusing: Flint thinks  _no, please, don’t be afraid of me, I’m sorry, I can’t stop it,_ and the roaring gets louder, someone’s screaming in his ear–

He wakes with a cry, drenched in sweat and terrified. The ship creaks around him, rocking with the waves. Slowly, he pushes himself up to look towards the captain’s chair–half-hoping, foolishly–

It is, of course, empty. But in the gloom of the cabin, Flint’s sure he sees a small, wooden figure on his desk that had not been there when he went to bed. Somewhere in the deep, white, bony fish dive and flicker.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated, and I take requests both here and at flintrage on tumblr.


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